Politics
BREAKING: Georgia Elections Board Accepted $2 Million From Mark Zuckerberg’s Group, Violating State Law
During the 2020 election, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Pricilla Chan, donated tremendous amounts to non-profit organizations around the country.
In fact, the pair donated about $400 million during the election cycle. That money then ended up helping liberals more than conservatives, as the AP reported, saying “Zuckerberg’s money was largely distributed through a nonpartisan foundation that had liberal roots. Conservative groups cite analyses that the money went disproportionately to Democratic-leaning counties in key states such as Florida and Pennsylvania.”
Numerous red states then stepped in to ban such private donations to election organizations, one of which was Georgia. It’s post-Zuckerbucks law requires that all donations made to local election offices to be distributed by the secretary of state.
One Georgia county, DeKalb, defied that law. They accepted $2 million from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, the non-profit that received the lion’s share of 2020 Zuckerbucks.
Here’s more from JustTheNews:
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) slammed DeKalb County for accepting $2 million in private money for election administration — or “Zuckerbucks” — in “violation” of state law while suggesting a legislative remedy to prevent counties from directly receiving such funds.
The DeKalb County Board of Voter Registration & Elections accepted $2 million from a nonprofit linked to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
DeKalb’s acceptance of the private funds “is a violation of S.B. 202,” Raffensperger told Just the News on Thursday, referring to Georgia’s 2021 election reform law.
“The legislative intent of S.B. 202 was to preclude any outside organizations from sending, directly, money to counties for election purposes,” the state’s top election official said, noting “the wording of S.B. 202 is the money should be sent to the secretary of state’s office,” then dispensed to the counties.
The rationale for dispensing the funds this way was so that “every county was treated uniformly throughout the state,” benefiting smaller counties as well as larger counties, he explained.
According to Greater Georgia, the CTCL funneled “$45 million into Georgia in mostly blue counties ahead of the election – boosting turnout in Democratic counties and benefitting liberal candidates at the top of the ticket.”
Accepting that donation was a violation of Georgia’s election laws, as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger told Just the News. That outlet, reporting on the situation, noted that:
DeKalb’s acceptance of the private funds “is a violation of S.B. 202,” Raffensperger told Just the News on Thursday, referring to Georgia’s 2021 election reform law.
“The legislative intent of S.B. 202 was to preclude any outside organizations from sending, directly, money to counties for election purposes,” the state’s top election official said, noting “the wording of S.B. 202 is the money should be sent to the secretary of state’s office,” then dispensed to the counties.
S.B. 202 provides, in part, that “No superintendent shall take or accept any funding, grants, or gifts from any source other than from the governing authority of the county or municipality, the State of Georgia, or the federal government.”
Secretary of State Raffensberger wasn’t the only Georgia politician to call out DeKalb for accepting the donation dollars in violation of Georgia law. Former Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler did as well, saying:
“After the 2020 elections, Georgia lawmakers acted swiftly to ban Zuckerbucks – and all other outside money – from influencing our elections. Today, two years later, deep-blue DeKalb County is blatantly skirting that law to get the same money, while undermining trust and fairness in our electoral process.
“The bottom line is that Georgia’s election operations should not be bought and paid for by special interests, and now, that’s the law. That is why, on behalf of Georgia voters, I am calling for an investigation into DeKalb County’s clear violation of the law, and to shut down this partisan Zuckerbucks slush fund.”